Last email I seeded the idea that for big important content, you ideally want to create a sequence of content where you've thought through the beliefs you want to establish in order to warm up your potential clients and get them ready to buy.

A bit of a mouthful, but I'm sure you get the idea.

So your first step is to plot out what those beliefs are and the order you want to touch on them. 

It starts with understanding where your potential client is when you first begin to communicate with them.

If they've signed up for some kind of lead magnet and are on your email list you can be reasonably confident they have a problem or goal that your lead magnet talks about.

So they're at least aware they have a problem. Your content can start by expanding on the impact of the problem and giving useful ideas to help them solve it.

If you're posting content on a blog or somewhere like Linkedin then you can't count on that.

It's why a lot of content that people think is really valuable actually falls flat. Because it starts talking about solutions before the audience even thinks they have a problem.

If you're posting content to a cold audience you need to start with the symptoms of the problem they might have and help them diagnose whether they have it.

This doesn't have to be long and drawn out, but it's crucial that you do it.

In Michael Hammer's classic Harvard Business Review article from 1990 that introduced Reengineering to the world he begins not by talking about his big new idea, but about the problems it addresses.

How big they are, why they exist, and how traditional methods of solving them just aren't working.

It's well worth a read of the article just to see how he builds the case for change (and therefore the case for hiring his consulting firm).

It's all about the sequencing.

No matter how great your ideas, hints ant tips are; if someone doesn't think they have a problem they're not going to be interested.

Or if they think the problem is small.

Or they think they can fix it just by working a bit harder or making small changes to what they're doing.

So you have to talk about problems first. Then their impact. Then how other approaches won't fix them.

Only then will people be open to your great new ideas.